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A Hunted Island by Algernon Blackwood

The following events occurred on a small island
of isolated position in a large Canadian lake, to
whose cool waters the inhabitants of Montreal
and Toronto flee for rest and recreation in the
hot months. It is only to be regretted that
events of such peculiar interest to the genuine
student of the psychical should be entirely uncorroborated.
Such unfortunately, however, is the
case.

Our own party of nearly twenty had returned
to Montreal that very day, and I was left in
solitary possession for a week or two longer, in
order to accomplish some important "reading"
for the law which I had foolishly neglected during
the summer.

It was late in September, and the big trout and
maskinonge were stirring themselves in the depths
of the lake, and beginning slowly to move up to
the surface waters as the north winds and early
frosts lowered their temperature. Already the
maples were crimson and gold, and the wild
laughter of the loons echoed in sheltered bays that
never knew their strange cry in the summer.

With a whole island to oneself, a two-storey
cottage, a canoe, and only the chipmunks, and the
farmer's weekly visit with eggs and bread, to
disturb one, the opportunities for hard reading
might be very great. It all depends!

The rest of the party had gone off with many
warnings to beware of Indians, and not to stay
late enough to be the victim of a frost that thinks
nothing of forty below zero. After they had gone,
the loneliness of the situation made itself unpleasantly
felt. There were no other islands within
six or seven miles, and though the mainland forests
lay a couple of miles behind me, they stretched
for a very great distance unbroken by any signs
of human habitation. But, though the island was
completely deserted and silent, the rocks and trees
that had echoed human laughter and voices almost
every hour of the day for two months could not
fail to retain some memories of it all; and I was
not surprised to fancy I heard a shout or a cry as
I passed from rock to rock, and more than once to
imagine that I heard my own name called aloud.

In the cottage there were six tiny little bedrooms
divided from one another by plain unvarnished
partitions of pine. A wooden bedstead,
a mattress, and a chair, stood in each room, but I
only found two mirrors, and one of these was
broken.

The boards creaked a good deal as I moved
about, and the signs of occupation were so recent
that I could hardly believe I was alone. I half
expected to find someone left behind, still trying
to crowd into a box more than it would hold.
The door of one room was stiff, and refused for
a moment to open, and it required very little
persuasion to imagine someone was holding the
handle on the inside, and that when it opened I
should meet a pair of human eyes.

A thorough search of the floor led me to select
as my own sleeping quarters a little room with a
diminutive balcony over the verandah roof. The
room was very small, but the bed was large, and
had the best mattress of them all. It was situated
directly over the sitting-room where I should live
and do my "reading," and the miniature window
looked out to the rising sun. With the exception
of a narrow path which led from the front door
and verandah through the trees to the boat-landing,
the island was densely covered with
maples, hemlocks, and cedars. The trees gathered
in round the cottage so closely that the slightest
wind made the branches scrape the roof and tap
the wooden walls. A few moments after sunset
the darkness became impenetrable, and ten yards
beyond the glare of the lamps that shone through
the sitting-room windows—of which there were
four—you could not see an inch before your nose,
nor move a step without running up against a
tree.

The rest of that day I spent moving my belongings
from my tent to the sitting-room, taking
stock of the contents of the larder, and chopping
enough wood for the stove to last me for a week.
After that, just before sunset, I went round the
island a couple of times in my canoe for precaution's
sake. I had never dreamed of doing this
before, but when a man is alone he does things that
never occur to him when he is one of a large
party.

How lonely the island seemed when I landed
again! The sun was down, and twilight is unknown
in these northern regions. The darkness comes up
at once. The canoe safely pulled up and turned
over on her face, I groped my way up the little
narrow pathway to the verandah. The six lamps
were soon burning merrily in the front room; but
in the kitchen, where I "dined," the shadows were
so gloomy, and the lamplight was so inadequate,
that the stars could be seen peeping through the
cracks between the rafters.

I turned in early that night. Though it was
calm and there was no wind, the creaking of my
bedstead and the musical gurgle of the water over
the rocks below were not the only sounds that
reached my ears. As I lay awake, the appalling
emptiness of the house grew upon me. The
corridors and vacant rooms seemed to echo
innumerable footsteps, shufflings, the rustle of
skirts, and a constant undertone of whispering.
When sleep at length overtook me, the breathings
and noises, however, passed gently to mingle with
the voices of my dreams.

A week passed by, and the "reading" progressed
favourably. On the tenth day of my solitude, a
strange thing happened. I awoke after a good
night's sleep to find myself possessed with a
marked repugnance for my room. The air seemed
to stifle me. The more I tried to define the cause
of this dislike, the more unreasonable it appeared.
There was something about the room that made me
afraid. Absurd as it seems, this feeling clung to
me obstinately while dressing, and more than once
I caught myself shivering, and conscious of an
inclination to get out of the room as quickly as
possible. The more I tried to laugh it away, the
more real it became; and when at last I was
dressed, and went out into the passage, and downstairs
into the kitchen, it was with feelings of
relief, such as I might imagine would accompany
one's escape from the presence of a dangerous
contagious disease.

While cooking my breakfast, I carefully recalled
every night spent in the room, in the hope that I
might in some way connect the dislike I now felt
with some disagreeable incident that had occurred
in it. But the only thing I could recall was one
stormy night when I suddenly awoke and heard
the boards creaking so loudly in the corridor that
I was convinced there were people in the house.
So certain was I of this, that I had descended the
stairs, gun in hand, only to find the doors and
windows securely fastened, and the mice and black-beetles
in sole possession of the floor. This was
certainly not sufficient to account for the strength
of my feelings.

The morning hours I spent in steady reading;
and when I broke off in the middle of the day for
a swim and luncheon, I was very much surprised,
if not a little alarmed, to find that my dislike for
the room had, if anything, grown stronger. Going
upstairs to get a book, I experienced the most
marked aversion to entering the room, and while
within I was conscious all the time of an uncomfortable
feeling that was half uneasiness and
half apprehension. The result of it was that,
instead of reading, I spent the afternoon on the
water paddling and fishing, and when I got home
about sundown, brought with me half a dozen
delicious black bass for the supper-table and the
larder.

As sleep was an important matter to me at this
time, I had decided that if my aversion to the room
was so strongly marked on my return as it had
been before, I would move my bed down into the
sitting-room, and sleep there. This was, I argued, in
no sense a concession to an absurd and fanciful fear,
but simply a precaution to ensure a good night's
sleep. A bad night involved the loss of the next
day's reading,—a loss I was not prepared to
incur.

I accordingly moved my bed downstairs into a
corner of the sitting-room facing the door, and was
moreover uncommonly glad when the operation
was completed, and the door of the bedroom closed
finally upon the shadows, the silence, and the
strange fear that shared the room with them.

The croaking stroke of the kitchen clock sounded
the hour of eight as I finished washing up my
few dishes, and closing the kitchen door behind
me, passed into the front room. All the lamps
were lit, and their reflectors, which I had polished
up during the day, threw a blaze of light into the
room.

Outside the night was still and warm. Not a
breath of air was stirring; the waves were silent,
the trees motionless, and heavy clouds hung like
an oppressive curtain over the heavens. The
darkness seemed to have rolled up with unusual
swiftness, and not the faintest glow of colour
remained to show where the sun had set. There
was present in the atmosphere that ominous and
overwhelming silence which so often precedes the
most violent storms.

I sat down to my books with my brain unusually
clear, and in my heart the pleasant satisfaction of
knowing that five black bass were lying in the
ice-house, and that to-morrow morning the old
farmer would arrive with fresh bread and eggs. I
was soon absorbed in my books.

As the night wore on the silence deepened.
Even the chipmunks were still; and the boards of
the floors and walls ceased creaking. I read on
steadily till, from the gloomy shadows of the
kitchen, came the hoarse sound of the clock striking
nine. How loud the strokes sounded! They were
like blows of a big hammer. I closed one book
and opened another, feeling that I was just
warming up to my work.

This, however, did not last long. I presently
found that I was reading the same paragraphs over
twice, simple paragraphs that did not require such
effort. Then I noticed that my mind began to
wander to other things, and the effort to recall my
thoughts became harder with each digression.
Concentration was growing momentarily more
difficult. Presently I discovered that I had turned
over two pages instead of one, and had not noticed
my mistake until I was well down the page. This
was becoming serious. What was the disturbing
influence? It could not be physical fatigue. On
the contrary, my mind was unusually alert, and
in a more receptive condition than usual. I made
a new and determined effort to read, and for a
short time succeeded in giving my whole attention
to my subject. But in a very few moments again
I found myself leaning back in my chair, staring
vacantly into space.

Something was evidently at work in my sub-consciousness.
There was something I had
neglected to do. Perhaps the kitchen door and
windows were not fastened. I accordingly went
to see, and found that they were! The fire perhaps
needed attention. I went in to see, and found that
it was all right! I looked at the lamps, went
upstairs into every bedroom in turn, and then went
round the house, and even into the ice-house.
Nothing was wrong; everything was in its place.
Yet something was wrong! The conviction grew
stronger and stronger within me.

When I at length settled down to my books
again and tried to read, I became aware, for the
first time, that the room seemed growing cold.
Yet the day had been oppressively warm, and
evening had brought no relief. The six big lamps,
moreover, gave out heat enough to warm the room
pleasantly. But a chilliness, that perhaps crept
up from the lake, made itself felt in the room, and
caused me to get up to close the glass door opening
on to the verandah.

For a brief moment I stood looking out at the
shaft of light that fell from the windows and shone
some little distance down the pathway, and out for
a few feet into the lake.

As I looked, I saw a canoe glide into the pathway
of light, and immediately crossing it, pass out of
sight again into the darkness. It was perhaps
a hundred feet from the shore, and it moved
swiftly.

I was surprised that a canoe should pass the
island at that time of night, for all the summer
visitors from the other side of the lake had gone
home weeks before, and the island was a long way
out of any line of water traffic.

My reading from this moment did not make
very good progress, for somehow the picture of
that canoe, gliding so dimly and swiftly across the
narrow track of light on the black waters,
silhouetted itself against the background of my
mind with singular vividness. It kept coming
between my eyes and the printed page. The more
I thought about it the more surprised I became.
It was of larger build than any I had seen during
the past summer months, and was more like the
old Indian war canoes with the high curving bows
and stern and wide beam. The more I tried to
read, the less success attended my efforts; and
finally I closed my books and went out on the
verandah to walk up and down a bit, and shake
the chilliness out of my bones.

The night was perfectly still, and as dark as
imaginable. I stumbled down the path to the little
landing wharf, where the water made the very
faintest of gurgling under the timbers. The sound
of a big tree falling in the mainland forest, far
across the lake, stirred echoes in the heavy air, like
the first guns of a distant night attack. No other
sound disturbed the stillness that reigned supreme.

As I stood upon the wharf in the broad splash
of light that followed me from the sitting-room
windows, I saw another canoe cross the pathway
of uncertain light upon the water, and disappear
at once into the impenetrable gloom that lay
beyond. This time I saw more distinctly than
before. It was like the former canoe, a big birch-bark,
with high-crested bows and stern and broad
beam. It was paddled by two Indians, of whom
the one in the stern—the steerer—appeared to be
a very large man. I could see this very plainly;
and though the second canoe was much nearer the
island than the first, I judged that they were both
on their way home to the Government Reservation,
which was situated some fifteen miles away upon
the mainland.

I was wondering in my mind what could possibly
bring any Indians down to this part of the lake at
such an hour of the night, when a third canoe, of
precisely similar build, and also occupied by two
Indians, passed silently round the end of the wharf.
This time the canoe was very much nearer shore,
and it suddenly flashed into my mind that the
three canoes were in reality one and the same, and
that only one canoe was circling the island!

This was by no means a pleasant reflection,
because, if it were the correct solution of the
unusual appearance of the three canoes in this
lonely part of the lake at so late an hour, the
purpose of the two men could only reasonably be
considered to be in some way connected with
myself. I had never known of the Indians
attempting any violence upon the settlers who
shared the wild, inhospitable country with them;
at the same time, it was not beyond the region of
possibility to suppose. . . . But then I did not care
even to think of such hideous possibilities, and my
imagination immediately sought relief in all manner
of other solutions to the problem, which indeed
came readily enough to my mind, but did not
succeed in recommending themselves to my
reason.

Meanwhile, by a sort of instinct, I stepped
back out of the bright light in which I had
hitherto been standing, and waited in the deep
shadow of a rock to see if the canoe would
again make its appearance. Here I could see,
without being seen, and the precaution seemed a
wise one.

After less than five minutes the canoe, as I had
anticipated, made its fourth appearance. This time
it was not twenty yards from the wharf, and I saw
that the Indians meant to land. I recognised the
two men as those who had passed before, and the
steerer was certainly an immense fellow. It was
unquestionably the same canoe. There could be no
longer any doubt that for some purpose of their
own the men had been going round and round the
island for some time, waiting for an opportunity to
land. I strained my eyes to follow them in the
darkness, but the night had completely swallowed
them up, and not even the faintest swish of the
paddles reached my ears as the Indians plied their
long and powerful strokes. The canoe would be
round again in a few moments, and this time it
was possible that the men might land. It was
well to be prepared. I knew nothing of their
intentions, and two to one (when the two are big
Indians!) late at night on a lonely island was not
exactly my idea of pleasant intercourse.

In a corner of the sitting-room, leaning up
against the back wall, stood my Marlin rifle, with
ten cartridges in the magazine and one lying
snugly in the greased breech. There was just
time to get up to the house and take up a position
of defence in that corner. Without an instant's
hesitation I ran up to the verandah, carefully
picking my way among the trees, so as to avoid
being seen in the light. Entering the room, I shut
the door leading to the verandah, and as quickly
as possible turned out every one of the six lamps.
To be in a room so brilliantly lighted, where my
every movement could be observed from outside,
while I could see nothing but impenetrable darkness
at every window, was by all laws of warfare
an unnecessary concession to the enemy. And this
enemy, if enemy it was to be, was far too wily and
dangerous to be granted any such advantages.

I stood in the corner of the room with my back
against the wall, and my hand on the cold rifle-barrel.
The table, covered with my books, lay
between me and the door, but for the first few
minutes after the lights were out the darkness
was so intense that nothing could be discerned
at all. Then, very gradually, the outline of the
room became visible, and the framework of the
windows began to shape itself dimly before my
eyes.

After a few minutes the door (its upper half
of glass), and the two windows that looked
out upon the front verandah, became specially
distinct; and I was glad that this was so, because
if the Indians came up to the house I should be
able to see their approach, and gather something
of their plans. Nor was I mistaken, for there
presently came to my ears the peculiar hollow
sound of a canoe landing and being carefully
dragged up over the rocks. The paddles I distinctly
heard being placed underneath, and the
silence that ensued thereupon I rightly interpreted
to mean that the Indians were stealthily approaching
the house. . . .

While it would be absurd to claim that I was
not alarmed—even frightened—at the gravity of
the situation and its possible outcome, I speak the
whole truth when I say that I was not overwhelmingly
afraid for myself. I was conscious that even
at this stage of the night I was passing into a
psychical condition in which my sensations seemed
no longer normal. Physical fear at no time entered
into the nature of my feelings; and though I
kept my hand upon my rifle the greater part of
the night, I was all the time conscious that its
assistance could be of little avail against the terrors
that I had to face. More than once I seemed to
feel most curiously that I was in no real sense a
part of the proceedings, nor actually involved in
them, but that I was playing the part of a spectator—a
spectator, moreover, on a psychic rather
than on a material plane. Many of my sensations
that night were too vague for definite description
and analysis, but the main feeling that will stay
with me to the end of my days is the awful horror
of it all, and the miserable sensation that if the
strain had lasted a little longer than was actually
the case my mind must inevitably have given way.

Meanwhile I stood still in my corner, and waited
patiently for what was to come. The house was
as still as the grave, but the inarticulate voices of
the night sang in my ears, and I seemed to hear
the blood running in my veins and dancing in my
pulses.

If the Indians came to the back of the house,
they would find the kitchen door and window
securely fastened. They could not get in there
without making considerable noise, which I was
bound to hear. The only mode of getting in was
by means of the door that faced me, and I kept my
eyes glued on that door without taking them off
for the smallest fraction of a second.

My sight adapted itself every minute better to
the darkness. I saw the table that nearly filled
the room, and left only a narrow passage on each
side. I could also make out the straight backs of
the wooden chairs pressed up against it, and could
even distinguish my papers and inkstand lying on
the white oilcloth covering. I thought of the gay
faces that had gathered round that table during
the summer, and I longed for the sunlight as I had
never longed for it before.

Less than three feet to my left the passage-way
led to the kitchen, and the stairs leading to the
bedrooms above commenced in this passage-way,
but almost in the sitting-room itself. Through
the windows I could see the dim motionless
outlines of the trees: not a leaf stirred, not a
branch moved.

A few moments of this awful silence, and then
I was aware of a soft tread on the boards of
the verandah, so stealthy that it seemed an impression
directly on my brain rather than upon
the nerves of hearing. Immediately afterwards a
black figure darkened the glass door, and I perceived
that a face was pressed against the upper
panes. A shiver ran down my back, and my hair
was conscious of a tendency to rise and stand at
right angles to my head.

It was the figure of an Indian, broad-shouldered
and immense; indeed, the largest figure of a man
I have ever seen outside of a circus hall. By some
power of light that seemed to generate itself in the
brain, I saw the strong dark face with the aquiline
nose and high cheek-bones flattened against the
glass. The direction of the gaze I could not determine;
but faint gleams of light as the big eyes
rolled round and showed their whites, told me
plainly that no corner of the room escaped their
searching.

For what seemed fully five minutes the dark
figure stood there, with the huge shoulders bent
forward so as to bring the head down to the level
of the glass; while behind him, though not nearly
so large, the shadowy form of the other Indian
swayed to and fro like a bent tree. While I waited
in an agony of suspense and agitation for their
next movement little currents of icy sensation ran
up and down my spine and my heart seemed alternately
to stop beating and then start off again
with terrifying rapidity. They must have heard
its thumping and the singing of the blood in my
head! Moreover, I was conscious, as I felt a cold
stream of perspiration trickle down my face, of a
desire to scream, to shout, to bang the walls like a
child, to make a noise, or do anything that would
relieve the suspense and bring things to a speedy
climax.

It was probably this inclination that led me to
another discovery, for when I tried to bring my
rifle from behind my back to raise it and have it
pointed at the door ready to fire, I found that
I was powerless to move. The muscles, paralysed
by this strange fear, refused to obey the will.
Here indeed was a terrifying complication!

There was a faint sound of rattling at the brass
knob, and the door was pushed open a couple of
inches. A pause of a few seconds, and it was
pushed open still further. Without a sound of
footsteps that was appreciable to my ears, the two
figures glided into the room, and the man behind
gently closed the door after him.

They were alone with me between the four
walls. Could they see me standing there, so still
and straight in my corner? Had they, perhaps,
already seen me? My blood surged and sang like
the roll of drums in an orchestra; and though I
did my best to suppress my breathing, it sounded
like the rushing of wind through a pneumatic
tube.

My suspense as to the next move was soon at an
end—only, however, to give place to a new and
keener alarm. The men had hitherto exchanged
no words and no signs, but there were general
indications of a movement across the room, and
whichever way they went they would have to pass
round the table. If they came my way they
would have to pass within six inches of my person.
While I was considering this very disagreeable
possibility, I perceived that the smaller Indian
(smaller by comparison) suddenly raised his arm
and pointed to the ceiling. The other fellow raised
his head and followed the direction of his companion's
arm. I began to understand at last.
They were going upstairs, and the room directly
overhead to which they pointed had been until
this night my bedroom. It was the room in which
I had experienced that very morning so strange a
sensation of fear, and but for which I should then
have been lying asleep in the narrow bed against
the window.

The Indians then began to move silently around
the room; they were going upstairs, and they were
coming round my side of the table. So stealthy
were their movements that, but for the abnormally
sensitive state of the nerves, I should never have
heard them. As it was, their cat-like tread was
distinctly audible. Like two monstrous black cats
they came round the table toward me, and for the
first time I perceived that the smaller of the two
dragged something along the floor behind him.
As it trailed along over the floor with a soft,
sweeping sound, I somehow got the impression
that it was a large dead thing with outstretched
wings, or a large, spreading cedar branch. Whatever
it was, I was unable to see it even in outline,
and I was too terrified, even had I possessed the
power over my muscles, to move my neck forward
in the effort to determine its nature.

Nearer and nearer they came. The leader
rested a giant hand upon the table as he moved.
My lips were glued together, and the air seemed
to burn in my nostrils. I tried to close my eyes,
so that I might not see as they passed me; but
my eyelids had stiffened, and refused to obey.
Would they never get by me? Sensation seemed
also to have left my legs, and it was as if I were
standing on mere supports of wood or stone.
Worse still, I was conscious that I was losing the
power of balance, the power to stand upright, or
even to lean backwards against the wall. Some
force was drawing me forward, and a dizzy terror
seized me that I should lose my balance, and topple
forward against the Indians just as they were in
the act of passing me.

Even moments drawn out into hours must come
to an end some time, and almost before I knew it
the figures had passed me and had their feet upon
the lower step of the stairs leading to the upper
bedrooms. There could not have been six inches
between us, and yet I was conscious only of a
current of cold air that followed them. They had
not touched me, and I was convinced that they
had not seen me. Even the trailing thing on the
floor behind them had not touched my feet, as I
had dreaded it would, and on such an occasion as
this I was grateful even for the smallest mercies.

The absence of the Indians from my immediate
neighbourhood brought little sense of relief. I
stood shivering and shuddering in my corner, and,
beyond being able to breathe more freely, I felt no
whit less uncomfortable. Also, I was aware that
a certain light, which, without apparent source or
rays, had enabled me to follow their every gesture
and movement, had gone out of the room with
their departure. An unnatural darkness now filled
the room, and pervaded its every corner so that I
could barely make out the positions of the windows
and the glass doors.

As I said before, my condition was evidently an
abnormal one. The capacity for feeling surprise
seemed, as in dreams, to be wholly absent. My
senses recorded with unusual accuracy every
smallest occurrence, but I was able to draw only
the simplest deductions.

The Indians soon reached the top of the stairs,
and there they halted for a moment. I had not
the faintest clue as to their next movement. They
appeared to hesitate. They were listening attentively.
Then I heard one of them, who by the
weight of his soft tread must have been the
giant, cross the narrow corridor and enter the
room directly overhead—my own little bedroom.
But for the insistence of that unaccountable dread
I had experienced there in the morning, I should
at that very moment have been lying in the bed
with the big Indian in the room standing beside
me.

For the space of a hundred seconds there was
silence, such as might have existed before the
birth of sound. It was followed by a long quivering
shriek of terror, which rang out into the night,
and ended in a short gulp before it had run its
full course. At the same moment the other Indian
left his place at the head of the stairs, and joined
his companion in the bedroom. I heard the
"thing" trailing behind him along the floor. A
thud followed, as of something heavy falling, and
then all became as still and silent as before.

It was at this point that the atmosphere, surcharged
all day with the electricity of a fierce
storm, found relief in a dancing flash of brilliant
lightning simultaneously with a crash of loudest
thunder. For five seconds every article in the
room was visible to me with amazing distinctness,
and through the windows I saw the tree trunks
standing in solemn rows. The thunder pealed and
echoed across the lake and among the distant
islands, and the flood-gates of heaven then opened
and let out their rain in streaming torrents.

The drops fell with a swift rushing sound upon
the still waters of the lake, which leaped up to
meet them, and pattered with the rattle of shot
on the leaves of the maples and the roof of the
cottage. A moment later, and another flash, even
more brilliant and of longer duration than the first,
lit up the sky from zenith to horizon, and bathed
the room momentarily in dazzling whiteness. I
could see the rain glistening on the leaves and
branches outside. The wind rose suddenly,
and in less than a minute the storm that had
been gathering all day burst forth in its full
fury.

Above all the noisy voices of the elements, the
slightest sounds in the room overhead made themselves
heard, and in the few seconds of deep silence
that followed the shriek of terror and pain I was
aware that the movements had commenced again.
The men were leaving the room and approaching
the top of the stairs. A short pause, and they
began to descend. Behind them, tumbling from
step to step, I could hear that trailing "thing"
being dragged along. It had become ponderous!

I awaited their approach with a degree of calmness,
almost of apathy, which was only explicable
on the ground that after a certain point Nature
applies her own anæsthetic, and a merciful condition
of numbness supervenes. On they came, step
by step, nearer and nearer, with the shuffling sound
of the burden behind growing louder as they
approached.

They were already half-way down the stairs
when I was galvanised afresh into a condition of
terror by the consideration of a new and horrible
possibility. It was the reflection that if another
vivid flash of lightning were to come when the
shadowy procession was in the room, perhaps when
it was actually passing in front of me, I should see
everything in detail, and worse, be seen myself!
I could only hold my breath and wait—wait while
the minutes lengthened into hours, and the
procession made its slow progress round the
room.

The Indians had reached the foot of the staircase.
The form of the huge leader loomed in the doorway
of the passage, and the burden with an ominous
thud had dropped from the last step to the floor.
There was a moment's pause while I saw the
Indian turn and stoop to assist his companion.
Then the procession moved forward again, entered
the room close on my left, and began to move slowly
round my side of the table. The leader was already
beyond me, and his companion, dragging on the
floor behind him the burden, whose confused outline
I could dimly make out, was exactly in front
of me, when the cavalcade came to a dead halt.
At the same moment, with the strange suddenness
of thunderstorms, the splash of the rain ceased
altogether, and the wind died away into utter
silence.

For the space of five seconds my heart seemed
to stop beating, and then the worst came. A
double flash of lightning lit up the room and its
contents with merciless vividness.

The huge Indian leader stood a few feet past
me on my right. One leg was stretched forward
in the act of taking a step. His immense shoulders
were turned toward his companion, and in all their
magnificent fierceness I saw the outline of his
features. His gaze was directed upon the burden
his companion was dragging along the floor; but
his profile, with the big aquiline nose, high cheek-bone,
straight black hair and bold chin, burnt
itself in that brief instant into my brain, never
again to fade.

Dwarfish, compared with this gigantic figure,
appeared the proportions of the other Indian,
who, within twelve inches of my face, was stooping
over the thing he was dragging in a position that
lent to his person the additional horror of deformity.
And the burden, lying upon a sweeping cedar
branch which he held and dragged by a long stem,
was the body of a white man. The scalp had been
neatly lifted, and blood lay in a broad smear upon
the cheeks and forehead.

Then, for the first time that night, the terror that
had paralysed my muscles and my will lifted its
unholy spell from my soul. With a loud cry I
stretched out my arms to seize the big Indian by
the throat, and, grasping only air, tumbled forward
unconscious upon the ground.

I had recognised the body, and the face was my
own!. . . .

It was bright daylight when a man's voice
recalled me to consciousness. I was lying where
I had fallen, and the farmer was standing in the
room with the loaves of bread in his hands. The
horror of the night was still in my heart, and as
the bluff settler helped me to my feet and picked
up the rifle which had fallen with me, with many
questions and expressions of condolence, I imagine
my brief replies were neither self-explanatory nor
even intelligible.

That day, after a thorough and fruitless search
of the house, I left the island, and went over to
spend my last ten days with the farmer; and when
the time came for me to leave, the necessary reading
had been accomplished, and my nerves had
completely recovered their balance.

On the day of my departure the farmer started
early in his big boat with my belongings to row
to the point, twelve miles distant, where a little
steamer ran twice a week for the accommodation
of hunters. Late in the afternoon I went off in
another direction in my canoe, wishing to see the
island once again, where I had been the victim of
so strange an experience.

In due course I arrived there, and made a
tour of the island. I also made a search of
the little house, and it was not without a curious
sensation in my heart that I entered the little
upstairs bedroom. There seemed nothing unusual.

Just after I re-embarked, I saw a canoe gliding
ahead of me around the curve of the island. A
canoe was an unusual sight at this time of the
year, and this one seemed to have sprung from
nowhere. Altering my course a little, I watched
it disappear around the next projecting point of
rock. It had high curving bows, and there were
two Indians in it. I lingered with some excitement,
to see if it would appear again round the
other side of the island; and in less than five
minutes it came into view. There were less than
two hundred yards between us, and the Indians,
sitting on their haunches, were paddling swiftly
in my direction.

I never paddled faster in my life than I did in
those next few minutes. When I turned to look
again, the Indians had altered their course, and
were again circling the island.

The sun was sinking behind the forests on the
mainland, and the crimson-coloured clouds of sunset
were reflected in the waters of the lake, when
I looked round for the last time, and saw the big
bark canoe and its two dusky occupants still going
round the island. Then the shadows deepened
rapidly; the lake grew black, and the night wind
blew its first breath in my face as I turned a corner,
and a projecting bluff of rock hid from my view
both island and canoe.